The High Price of Shark Finning
Authors: Veronica Gordon, Chelsea Murphy, Amber Reilly
University of Massachusetts Amherst
The objective of shark finning: the fin. (Ocean.si.edu)
Introduction
A long line is cast into the ocean with thousands of hooks lining its 62 mile expanse. When its caster comes back for the line’s contents, they find and toss back albatross, loggerhead turtles, and other sea life until they come upon their goal: the shark. Dragged onto the boat of its captor, the hooked shark is often alive and struggling against its new environment. With a forceful blow to the spine, the shark is paralyzed. The fisherman then swiftly slices each fin off of the shark. And with that, the shark is pushed off of the boat and left to slowly die in the ocean depths.
Shark finning and lack of sustainable population management in Asia are causing major population declines in multiple different species of sharks. Although there are government regulations currently in place regarding shark finning, they lack proper enforcement and contain many loopholes that allow finning to occur, as evidenced by continued population declines (Ward-Paige et al. 2012, pg. 1856). Further steps are slowly being taken towards sustaining populations. Sharks were listed on the endangered species list in 2001, and several states in the U.S. banned the possession of shark products, in turn creating “safe areas” for sharks in the Pacific Ocean (Clarke et al. 2013). And it is not only the U.S. taking charge against this practice; New Zealand, in an effort to save their native species, has recently put a ban on the finning of dead sharks. This accompanies their ban on the finning of live sharks passed in 2009 (Davison 2014).
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